We first met each other in the screening room of our Reykjavik hotel. Moira was one of the guides, an enthusiastic young woman from British Columbia. She would be our naturalist, discussing everything from lichens to whales. She was an energetic blonde with purple-streaked hair who had a penchant for breaking into song and howls. That evening she gave us an introductory lecture and had the guests repeat the slogan, “This is Greenland.” She explained that plans could change without warning. Standard rules of schedules, weather, and logistics did not apply. Previous groups had gotten stranded in camp when poor visibility prevented helicopter and boat departures. There were no roads where we were going…
We had all come for different reasons. Some people mentioned the wildlife, others the geology, and some wanting to experience something unique. I came to witness the rapidly changing landscape. I had read recent articles about the melting of the ice cap, the rise of the oceans, and the opening of northern waterways through previously frozen waters. (See Elizabeth Kolbert’s article in the October 24, 2016 issue of The New Yorker,
Greenland is Melting.) While Greenland had long been on my doomsday travel list, I had a new-found sense of urgency about getting there.
Most of the guests were travelling solo on this expedition, which created an interesting social dynamic. Everyone needed to make a concerted effort to get acquainted. We quickly learned each other’s names—Daphne, her sons George and Andreas, Marilyn, Elizabeth, Michelle, Tom, Norman, and Renata. Over the next ten days we would hear each other stories, from our origins to our destinations, our hopes and our heartbreaks. We were a motley crew about to embark on a singular adventure.
Tom was a retired circuit court judge from Michigan and would be my kayak partner. Renata was a logistician sent from the home office and a fellow vegetarian. Norman, a retired naval engineer, had once lived in Corvallis, Oregon. Michelle had a wicked sense of humor, a Canadian transplanted to Boston. Marilyn was a retired corporate lawyer from the Midwest. Elizabeth was a medical librarian. Daphne was a New York City physician in private practice. George was a junior in high school, Andreas a sophomore in college, each trying to navigate his way in the world. And isn’t that what we were all doing?
Greenland is a country in flux—not only because of wind and ice and clouds, but also from the influence of outside cultures and technology. It is the largest island in the world (Australia counts as a continent), and 80% of the landmass is a 2-mile thick ice cap. The population of 56,000 lives in the green belt on the periphery. Greenland is an autonomous country, but considered part of the Kingdom of Denmark with associated economic and political ties.
While most people see Greenland from a ship, we would be staying on land at the Greenland Base Camp. This three-year-old semi-permanent camp is in a channel off the Sermilik Fjord, on the less visited and less populated East Greenland. To get to the “Arctic Riviera” took the better part of a day. We began with an airplane flight from Reykjavik to Kulusuk (“place like the chest of a black guillemot”), site of East Greenland’s airport. The airstrip was originally part of an airbase constructed by the American military in 1956. The Americans had left, but the airport remained. From Kulusuk we took helicopters to Tasiilaq (pop. 2000), the largest town in East Greenland.
In Tasiilaq we were met by Daniel, our historian and kayak guide. He was a lanky dark-haired Australian from the Blue Mountains. Daniel would later give lectures synthesizing his knowledge of geology and history, including the tale of Nansen’s expedition across the Greenland icefield. He gave a talk on snow, how it changes with time and pressure, how some ablates and some persists. He described how a glacier is a moving icefield, carving its signature into the Earth. The fjords, icebergs, and rocks tell stories of what has past and what is yet to come. I thought of how cool glacial ice would be in my gin and tonic.
On one of our first nights of the trip, we saw the movie “Palo's Wedding,” directed in 1935 by half Inuit, half Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen. Inuit culture is hundreds of years old and gave us the kayak, the anorak, and harpoon technology. The Inuit survived in Greenland while the Norse civilization perished. Rasmussen wanted to capture East Greenlandic Inuit life, and filmed scenes of polar bear hunting, seal skin preparation, and shamanic rituals.
Despite the age of the movie, it felt remarkably contemporary. It was the classic tale of two young men vying for a young woman’s affection. There was a drum dance showdown, filled with expressions of mirth, terror, and most powerful of all, the blank stare. Stoicism is a highly-prized emotion in this culture. Ultimately (spoiler alert!) the victor grabs his lady, straps her to the back of the kayak, and paddles away. The movie showed the sharply defined roles of men and women. The strongest hunter chooses the woman most adept at domestic skills to be his wife. Her duties including sewing and embroidery, and preparing seal meat and skin. Clothing must be both ornamental and functional. A man is literally sewn into his kayak. His garment needs to be wind, water, and weather proof.
On another night we met Rasmus, a 25-year old Dane who described his life in Tasiilaq. He had fallen in love with a local girl while at university and had dropped out of school to settle in her village. He lived with his girlfriend’s family, raised sled dogs, and was trying to get his tour business off the ground. He would take intrepid travelers on guided sled trips during the winter. I thought it brave and romantic of him to choose this challenging life, and I wished him well in his endeavors.
After two days in Tasiilaq, we took a boat to the base camp. We passed a wonderland of icebergs with all their varied forms and blue colors. We took turns describing the shapes we saw—opera houses and dragons and faces. The seafaring birds flew overhead: the fulmars with their choppy wing glides, the colony of common eiders, the glaucous and Icelandic gulls. We spotted our camp in the distance, a tiny row of tents overshadowed by the mountains of the valley.
We got oriented to the camp, from the Endurance dining hall to the shower tent to the communal yurt which housed the library and board games. I was impressed by the coziness of our tents. Our beds had faux fur blankets. Each tent had its own propane heater. While it could be stiflingly hot during the day I didn’t complain because I knew we would be warm at night. I hate being cold.
We were fitted with our Mustang suits which would serve as both flotation devices and protection from the elements. We strutted like supermodels while looking like Michelin men. We were quite formidable in our suits. We gazed warily at the electric fence surrounding the camp, to keep polar bears at bay. We met the sled dogs, Nanook and “Lady.” They were to alert us if a polar bear was nearby, although since they were chained, they couldn’t do much else. I found out the “Lady’s” name was the pejorative term for female dog. Apparently she was friendly towards people but nasty to other dogs. She and I got along just fine.
We met Julius, one of our zodiac drivers and guides. He was from the nearby town of Tinit. While visiting his village, we were invited to his mother-in-law’s home. She showed us her otak, the knife used to defat seal meat from the skins. She was renowned in the village for her skills, and proudly passed around her beautiful pieces. We saw boots, shorts, and jackets made from seal skin, cloth, and intricate beading and weaving. She showed us an amaud—a woman’s anorak, with an additional strap to hold an infant in place. A woman could simultaneously work, feed her baby, and maintain warmth for both.
The walls were lined with family portraits, and there was a large screen television in the living room. This is the challenge, to preserve traditional Inuit values in the face of 21st century technology. While young children are educated in Tinit, when they get older they are sent to Tasiilaq, and sometimes to Denmark for advanced training. Julius had spent time in Denmark learning to be an electrician. While he worked in tourism, he remained committed to teaching his children the hunting and fishing skills necessary to survive this climate.
Julius’ story was an interesting one. At the age of 4, he had been adopted by an older couple because his biological family could not provide for him. He described how he had learned to swim, not in the summer, but in the winter because a hunter needed to be fearless and able to handle the cold. The Inuit culture recognizes the importance of community to one’s survival. Multiple families lived in a sod houses together, to preserve body heat, to divide up the labor of hunting and domestic work, to share food. A hunter cannot kill a whale alone.
One can see the result of losing the Inuit values of community and designated roles. With the loss of purpose comes higher rates of depression, alcoholism, and domestic violence. Of course, other factors can contribute to mental illness, such as the prolonged darkness of winter and genetics, but feeling isolated doesn’t help. We visited a small craft shop which donated space and tools for people to create and sell art together, a place to restore some pride and connection. Tobacco and fast foods are also exacting their toll. The subsistence diet is being replaced by processed, fatty, and sugar laden foods imported from Denmark.
One morning I woke up with an all-over body ache. I was faintly nauseated, feverish, and head-achy. I knew our plan for the day included a long hike and even longer zodiac drives. I considered staying at camp but when I saw the stunning blue sky, I knew I would regret missing the glaciers. So I loaded up on tea and anti-inflammatories and bundled up in the Mustang suit with the rest of the crew. We had the first of several whale sightings. First we saw a hump-back, later a family of fins. We stopped for a snack on the edge of one glacier, and had lunch on the ledge of another. While most the group went off for a hike, a few of us stayed back.
I found myself a private spot from which to contemplate the ice. I felt like a lizard sunning myself on a rock, and let the heat warm my sore muscles. I sought quietude to meditate and instead got the cacophony of sounds: the thunderous glacial calvings, the snap, crackle, pop of the floes below, the startling sound of a bergey bit rolling over. I heard a sweet chirping sound, and saw a mustard colored bird watching me. This bird did not look like the snow buntings I had seen. I noticed how the color of the bird matched the rock. I was sure I had discovered some new species but later realized that the mustard color was the lens of my sunglasses, and the bird was likely a brown yellow Northern wheatear.
Greenland has the impermanence of a dream. Water exists simultaneously in all its forms, shifting seamlessly between solid and liquid, exhaling a dreamy mist. The wildflowers bloom effusively between rocks and over hills: harebells and fireweed, sorrel and saxifrage. The bejeweled flowers compete for the pollinators. In the absence of bees, the mosquitos and flies take over that role. We would wear mosquito head nets while hiking so as not to be devoured ourselves. Everything that grows stays low to the ground including the Arctic willow, lichens, and crowberries.
When we did group hikes, one guide would be at the front, carrying a rifle and making noise. This was in case of an unlikely, though not impossible, polar bear encounter. We heard in Kulusuk that a teenage girl, listening to music on her headphones, had nearly walked into a bear recently. The idea of seeing a bear was both thrilling and frightening. While one guide watched for bears, the other guide would be at the back, making sure no one got left behind. Being a helper is no less important than being a hero.
Our days were full of sunlight. It was light when we awoke. It was light when we went to bed. One night I set my alarm to sound right before midnight. I needed to see the moon. I threw on my fleece jacket and wool socks and stepped into the night air. From my deck I could make out the far-away lights of Tinit. The moon was bright and almost full—a waning gibbous. I looked for stars. Initially I counted five but the longer I gazed, the more appeared. Suddenly the sky was full of twinkling lights.
Another night I dreamt about garbage. My nightmare took place in Manhattan, a recurrent location for many of my night-time journeys. I was sorting through the recycling, compost, and trash, vainly trying to find a place for everything. It reminded me of the scene in "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" where Andie McDonald is talking with her therapist about her obsession with garbage, and where it will all go… Except this was not a movie about a bored American housewife. I had seen the trash at Kulusuk, leftover industrial wastes and detritus from the defunct American military base. I had seen litter on the shores at Tasiilaq and Tinit. There was talk of five-year plans, of relocating the trash to Nuuk in West Greenland. I don’t have a lot of faith in five-year plans.
While most of our days were packed with activity, we spent an inordinate amount of time eating. We would leave after a hearty breakfast, eat our picnic lunch perched on rock ledges, have a snack-filled happy hour, followed by a gourmet dinner. The Inuit subsist on a diet of seal, fish, and whale meat. There is no agriculture in Greenland. Our diet was a bit more varied. We had access to food flown in from Denmark and Iceland. Our chef Andrea made us homemade bread and pastas, served beautiful salads and risottos. In the hotels of Tasiilaq and Kulusuk, our meals were served buffet style with plenty of vegetarian options.
As this was a World Wildlife Fund approved tour, the carbon footprint was offset by the cost of the trip. There was a conscious effort to avoid restaurants that served whale. At our last group meal, Norm commented that the meat was “curiously seasoned.” I saw the pink-red piece of meat on his plate. Then Daphne said she didn’t care for it, and she was having a strange reaction. Moira and Daniel looked at each other and excused themselves. They came back quickly to let us know that the meat was whale. The normally placid Tom nearly spit out his bite. He then took a sip of his boxed wine, and to add insult to injury, announced that the wine was undrinkable. I gave the same look I always give when someone announces that they are unhappy with their piece of meat—part embarrassment, part sympathy, part disgust. The guides were mortified and quickly exchanged plates, bringing over a couple of bottles of California Cabernet. I continued eating my beet cakes which paired nicely with the earthy wine.
The last full day at Base Camp, I requested one last kayak trip. I had not yet gotten my fill of the Arctic waters. Our Zodiac driver and kayak master Ken was enlisted to take out interested parties after dinner. As it happened, most of the group opted to stay in, contented with a day of fjord exploration and sleepy after a multi-coursed dinner. I layered up for the chilly twilight paddle. Ken and I talked as we rowed, discussing life in New England, and our decision to live on the other coast. He was originally from Rhode Island and now made his home in Alaska. We discussed what it meant to live a peripatetic life, and how that choice determined other choices. We wondered about the names of the snow-covered mountains overlooking the channel, and made up names for the mountains in the style of the Inuit. The Inuit name their places not after people but rather descriptions. Sermilik Fjord is “place with glaciers.” We contemplated the "head of small seal" mountain, near Tinit "where the strait remains open." Stopping at the intersection of two channels, we sat suspended like jello on a moonless night. As we paddled back in silence, I breathed in deeply, feeling strong in my lungs and limbs. When we got back at 11 pm, the moon had yet to rise.
The following morning, we took our last hike in the hills behind the camp. We stopped first to visit a litter of new born puppies and their mother, another one of Julius’ sled dogs. They had been brought to the camp to provide food and protection. We all took turns snuggling (and almost smuggling) the tiny 10- day old pups. During the hike, I made a conscious effort to notice the clarity of the sky, the crispness of the air, the feel of the boggy ground cover beneath my feet. I reconstructed the history of the land: how the glacier formed the valley and brought along the fragmented rocks. I saw how the melting water danced over the brightly painted stones. Everywhere the wildflowers bloomed. The rocks were covered in lichens with their unique hues and forms. I saw the local children bathing and laughing in the pools. Despite taking lots of photos, I knew all the images were inadequate to preserve the scene.
When my late grandmother would receive houseguests, the first question she would ask was, “When are you leaving?” She was bracing herself for the eventual departure, anticipating the sorrow that would follow. When I travel, I try to focus on appreciating the current place, not focusing on destinations past or future. Nonetheless, I do feel a bit melancholy as the trip winds down. The more remote the place, the harsher the re-entry into “civilization.” There is something about the polar regions with their desolate and fragile beauty which leaves one disoriented upon leaving. I felt it when I got to Santiago after Antarctica, Oslo after Svalbard. It’s the distressed feeling of being alone in a crowd; of suddenly being plugged back into the digital grid after being away.
Once back in Reykjavik, Marilyn and I made plans for dinner. I was glad for the company and enjoyed our in-depth conversation. We shared our thoughts about the journey. After dinner we walked around downtown, exploring the sites of Laugavegur street. Marilyn headed back to the hotel, but I was feeling restless and wandered into an English style pub. A duo was singing cover tunes. So there I was crying into my Icelandic beer, as Pink Floyd’s “Wish you were here” and the Beatles' “You’ve got to hide your love away” played. I scribbled in my journal, recollecting the warmth of the Inuit people, the crackling of the ice, the sweetness of the puppies. I would miss this and more. Nothing this beautiful can last.
For more photos, please go to
Greenland photos.
